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Stabilizing Pole

Hi, I have just received my Pole Series 2 Complete from nodal ninja store last weekend. On Sunday I did my first pictures. I shoot with the pole in my hands, over the floor. I did auto-bracketing and obviously had to align the images before "enfusing" them. During the day its ok, but I want to shoot at night too, so I need to find a way to stabilize the pole for longer expositions.

To solve that I used:

a tripod (dolica pro-line with independent legs)

an aluminium piece to adapt the pole rotator to the tripod

the pole rotator

the pole

a pano head I made in aluminium

3 nylon strings tied to the tripod feet

The stabilization "secret" are the strings. It is not easy to tied them, as I can't make strength with much force at once or it will bent, so I had to strength little by little each string.

I would like to exchange experiences and ideas with the group here on solutions to stabilize the poles.

Hi, I have just received my Pole Series 2 Complete from nodal ninja store last weekend. On Sunday I did my first pictures. I shoot with the pole in my hands, over the floor. I did auto-bracketing and obviously had to align the images before "enfusing" them. During the day its ok, but I want to shoot at night too, so I need to find a way to stabilize the pole for longer expositions.
To solve that I used:

a tripod (dolica pro-line with independent legs)

an aluminium piece to adapt the pole rotator to the tripod

the pole rotator

the pole

a pano head I made in aluminium

3 nylon strings tied to the tripod feet

The stabilization "secret" are the strings. It is not easy to tied them, as I can't make strength with much force at once or it will bent, so I had to strength little by little each string.

I would like to exchange experiences and ideas with the group here on solutions to stabilize the poles.

Here is a pic of the mounted thing (click to see it bigger):

Thanks, Cartola.

Hi Cartola,
Welcome to the forum. Using poles at this height will always pose challenge if wanting to shoot hdr even though the carbon fiber of the Fantoec poles is extremely rigid. Nylon string tends to stretch a bit and go against manufacturer recommendations.
One idea, which is cheap and easy, is to set your exposure, shoot in RAW, and do pseudo bracketing during post production. You might be surprised with the end results.

First of all, I need to say that I am strongly against using our poles and accessories in the way you showed. Fanotec will not cover damage of pole base, tube that connect the base, and the rotator due to application shown in your picture. I am sorry but our products are not designed to be used in this way. And I believe they won't be able to withstand the bending torque should your strings fail to keep the pole vertical, eg during extension or contraction of pole. The leverage of a 6m pole (plus wind) is simply too strong for the connectors. We strongly recommend against mounting our pole directly to rigid support such as a tripod in first day of release. You should use a device similar to our tripod adapter to spread the torque to a much longer length of pole. The pole base and our pole rotator can only accept vertical loading.

For those who want to stabilize the pole, please use our tripod adapter or a similar device. Fanotec is working on easy to use guy wire system that will further stabilize the pole for night time and indoor use.

And welcome to the forum. I used Pole1 similar to your construction but I would never ever use it with Pole2 complete. Even with lighter weight cameras like D7000 I could hardly avoid with a sudden wind the pole 1/2 plus camera to come down. Fixed to a mini tripod and holding it in my hands it nearly came down.

The new Tripod adapter gives a much better feeling. Check if your center column has a possibility to add a 3/8" screw.

At the height you are using most of us bring the camera in front of NPP by 10-12mm, with a -15º pitch. Makes a smaller Nadir plus you get less torque.

Hi Cartola,
Welcome to the forum. Using poles at this height will always pose challenge if wanting to shoot hdr even though the carbon fiber of the Fantoec poles is extremely rigid. Nylon string tends to stretch a bit and go against manufacturer recommendations.
One idea, which is cheap and easy, is to set your exposure, shoot in RAW, and do pseudo bracketing during post production. You might be surprised with the end results.

Others might have some ideas as well.....
Good luck
Bill

ps - make sure your hand made pano head is a solid mount at top.

Thank you bill, I will be carefull not to force the pole and obviously don't expect to claim warranty it it breaks with it, but I really don't think they can do that if you do it carefully.

The tripod head is surely very very well fixed. I am really not used to follow all recommendations, I like to have fun and explore possibilities. I have already done pseudo bracketing with raw and it works good, but I still prefer real bracketing. Right now I am starting to use another not recommended thing, the Magic Lantern firmware add-on that allows me to do up to 9 auto bracketing and explore automatic bulb exposition up to 8hrs and also automatic shoot for time lapse. All those toys need a stabilized pole :)

I might say that the strings worked very well. There were almost none parallax error. The final result of that job can be seen here: http://wp.me/p1AGa0-aS

I will probably try to build a tripod adapter inspired on nodal ninja`s one. I am also thinking of a way to strenght all three lines at the same time, avoiding the need to have 2 people helping or doing it little by little one at a time.

And welcome to the forum. I used Pole1 similar to your construction but I would never ever use it with Pole2 complete. Even with lighter weight cameras like D7000 I could hardly avoid with a sudden wind the pole 1/2 plus camera to come down. Fixed to a mini tripod and holding it in my hands it nearly came down.

Hi Heinz, I was there holding it with my hands all the time, except for the time I went a little away, very worried, to take the picture, but I surely tested the stability before and there was almost no wind (surely a sudden one could happen).

Originally Posted by hindenhaag

The new Tripod adapter gives a much better feeling. Check if your center column has a possibility to add a 3/8" screw.

At the height you are using most of us bring the camera in front of NPP by 10-12mm, with a -15º pitch. Makes a smaller Nadir plus you get less torque.

raising a mast on a sailboat two wires at the sides are at a fixed length. You take the third one in front of the boat to get the mast into fixed position. Then the wires at the sides are strengthened as well.

So if you give a definite length to two of the cables you just have to tighten the third cable to get the pole in stable position. You could do this alone.